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WILLIAMS, Calif. (AP) — Former California Gov. Jerry Brown is living off the grid in retirement, but he’s still deeply connected on two issues that captivated him while in office and now are center stage globally: climate change and the threat of nuclear war. The 83-year-old Brown, who left office in 2019, serves as executive chairman of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the Doomsday Clock measuring how close humanity is to self-destruction. He’s also on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. In an interview with The Associated Press, Brown commended President Joe Biden for not raising...

Former Governor Jerry Brown told Congress on Tuesday President Trump and the Republican Party were responsible for the ongoing California fires because of their opposition to drastic climate change policies. “California’s burning while the deniers make a joke out of the standards that protect us all,” Brown told the House Oversight Committee. “The blood is on your soul here and I hope you wake up. Because this is not politics, this is life, this is morality. … This is real.” Brown was testifying against efforts by the Trump administration to rescind California’s waiver that previously allowed it to set its...

Jerry Brown isn’t finished fighting climate change just yet. The former California governor is launching a new partnership with China and UC Berkeley — the California-China Climate Institute — to research new solutions for cutting carbon emissions and averting the disastrous impact of global warming, he announced Monday.

Companies headquartered in California can no longer have all-male boards. That's according to a new law, enacted Sunday, which requires publicly traded firms in the state to place at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019 — or face a penalty. It also requires companies with five directors to add two women

As a left-leaning state that has embraced the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, California is unlikely to pursue work requirements for that program. But with the Trump administration backing efforts by a handful of states to impose such requirements, backers of the measure said it was important to enshrine in state law that California would not do the same. Critics have said that work requirements will limit the care of those unable to work, including those with chronic physical ailments, mental illness or substance abuse problems. Four states have already taken action to move toward work mandates,...

San Francisco International Airport’s corporate jet traffic rose roughly 30 percent during an international climate change conference in California, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown hosted the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco from Wednesday to Friday. Brown traveled to the conference by car with his security detail, but the governor is known for his lavish travel on other occasions, such as a 2016 trip to Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine with real-estate tycoon and Democrat Party donor George Marcus. (RELATED: Gov. Brown Is Launching California Into Space — To Fight Global Warming) More than...

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday said his state will launch its own satellite in a bid to combat climate change, following up on a promise he made after the election of President Trump. “We’re going to launch our own satellite — our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is and how we’re going to end it,” Brown told the audience at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. The Golden State will work with San Francisco-based Planet Labs to launch a satellite that would track climate-change-causing pollutants. The company has already launched 150 satellites, Brown...

"We're going to launch our own satellite — our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is and how we’re going to end it," Brown told the audience at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco..."In California, with science under attack, in fact we’re under attack by a lot of people, including Donald Trump, but the climate threat still keeps growing," Brown added. "So, we want to know, what the hell is going on all over the world, all the time?"..."If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite," Brown said back in...

The president’s moves to dismantle environmental protections are a “major assault” on Americans, California’s governor said at a climate summit Thursday. California Gov. Jerry Brown bashed President Donald Trump’s record on the environment Thursday, saying that Trump will be remembered on climate change as a “liar, criminal, fool — pick your choice.” The Democrat spoke out against the president in introductory remarks at the Global Climate Action Summit that he’s co-hosting in San Francisco. Brown also ripped Trump for taking steps to try to dismantle California’s vehicle emissions standards, rolling back federal controls on power plant pollution, and easing regulations...

Governor Jerry Brown has just signed a sweeping reform bill that makes California the first state in the nation to abolish bail for suspects awaiting trial. An overhaul of the state's bail system has been in the works for years, and became an inevitability earlier this year when a California appellate court declared the state's cash bail system unconstitutional. The new law goes into effect in October 2019. "Today, California reforms its bail system so that rich and poor alike are treated fairly," Brown said in a statement, moments after signing the California Money Bail Reform Act.The governor has waited...

California has been hard hit by wildfires, and 17 major fires continue to burn. California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced Saturday that the White House had approved the state's request for a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration for Shasta County, where the historic Carr Fire continues to burn. According to Governor Brown's office, the request was submitted to the President and approved in the same day. "This is part of a trend – a new normal – that we've got to deal with. We're dealing with it humanly, financially and governmentally," Governor Brown said on Saturday during a media briefing...

According to new research released by Charles Varner, associate director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, California lost an estimated 138 high-income individuals following passage of the Proposition 30 income tax increase championed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and approved by Golden State voters in 2012. This new research by Varner updates a previous paper released six years ago that looked at domestic migration to and from California following a 2004 income tax hike. “One reason we wanted to update our previous paper is that this tax change in 2012 is the largest state tax change that we...

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed an extension of California’s production tax credit program for five years beyond its 2020 expiration with $1.6 billion in credits. The Entertainment Union Coalition, a coalition of California IATSE Council, Directors Guild of America, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 399, LiUNA Local 724, and SAG-AFTRA, made the announcement Wednesday. Brown approved the legislation as part of signing the state’s overall 2018-19 budget. “As a coalition that represents working men and women of the entertainment industry, we are elated that the California film and television production tax credit program has been extended through 2025. Our...

A homeless man who was arrested last month after breaking into California Gov. Jerry Brown's home in Sacramento reportedly said he only tried entering the mansion because he figured the sanctuary state politician was "an open-door policy kind of guy." The California Highway Patrol said 51-year-old Steven Seeley was arrested April 19 and treated at a hospital for cuts he received while breaking a window to get out of the home in downtown Sacramento, located about 10 blocks from the Capitol. In an interview with KCRA-TV on Sunday, Seeley claimed he heard what sounded like a large cat roaring nearby,...

...The price for each inmate has doubled since 2005, even as court orders related to overcrowding have reduced the population by about one-quarter. Salaries and benefits for prison guards and medical providers drove much of the increase.

California has rejected the federal government’s initial plans for National Guard troops to the border because the work is considered too closely tied to immigration enforcement, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The state informed federal officials it will not allow its troops to fix and repair vehicles, operate remotely-controlled surveillance cameras to report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, operate radios and provide “mission support,” which can include clerical work, buying gas and handling payroll, according to officials with knowledge of the talks who spoke condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. Talks...

U.S. News & World report ranked the best states in the US for quality of life. Quality of life includes the quality of the natural environment, like water and air quality, and the quality of the social environment, like community engagement and voter participation. Of every state in the US, North Dakota residents have the highest quality of life.

California lawmakers are targeting the expected windfall that companies in the state would see under the federal tax overhaul with a bill that would require businesses to turn over half to the state. A proposed Assembly Constitutional Amendment by Assemblymen Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, and Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would create a tax surcharge on California companies making more than $1 million so that half of their federal tax cut would instead go to programs that benefit low-income and middle-class families. “Trump’s tax reform plan was nothing more than a middle-class tax increase,” Ting said in a statement. “It is unconscionable...

The Republican-backed federal tax bill flipped the tables on a never-ending question for California politicians: Will high taxes lead the state’s wealthiest residents to flee the Golden State for the comparable tax havens of Florida, Nevada and Texas? Republicans reliably raise that alarm when Democrats advocate for tax increases, like the 2012 and 2016 ballot initiatives that levied a new income tax on very high-earning residents. But now, with the federal tax bill cutting off deductions that benefited well-off Californians, the state’s Democrats suddenly are singing the GOP song about a potential millionaire exodus. “People with higher incomes pay a...

RUSH: Here’s a tweet from Nancy Pelosi: “I want every single California Republican to understand this. Your ideology doesn’t come first. Your party doesn’t come first. The PEOPLE come first. If you fail to recognize that, you don’t belong here.” She’s talking about the tax bill. Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, “The tax bill is evil in the extreme.” You talk about unhinged and worse. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So I checked the email during the break. “Rush, I don’t get it. What is Pelosi talking about here in that tweet that you read? ‘I want every single California Republican to understand...